Transitions
Nikolai KAPUSTIN (1937-2020)
Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No.1, Op.85 [24:38]
Alfred SCHNITTKE (1934-1998)
Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No.1 [45:06]
Eckart Runge (cello), Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra/Frank Strobel
rec. 9-10 March 2018, 30 September-2 October 2019, Haus des Rundfunks, Berlin
CAPRICCIO C5362 [69:49]
The death of Nikolai Kapustin in July this year was rather overlooked while the world stared deep into its navel and pondered the implications of Coronavirus, But in life Kapustin himself was largely overlooked as a composer until his piano works started to attract the attention of record companies in the early years of this century. As it is, most people who have heard the name, associate him with the piano, and in particular, his flamboyant jazz-infused piano works, which have come to be seen as some kind of elevated cross-over showpieces, designed to demonstrate both the virtuosity and liberal musical tastes of concert pianists. As ever, that is only part of the story, and his publisher’s website points to an output which, in addition to “numerous works for piano including a series of 20 piano sonatas and six piano concertos” included “concertos for solo instruments such as the cello and saxophone, compositions for big band, string and wind orchestras and chamber music for a broad spectrum of instrumental combinations”. Here we have what I believe is the first commercial recording of the first of his two cello concertos.
It is interesting to read on the publisher’s website how Kapustin claimed not to have been a jazz musician; “I have never attempted to be a genuine jazz pianist, but have to slip into this role for the benefit of my compositions”; contradicting that, the booklet notes with this Capriccio CD state categorically that “Kapustin worked as a successful jazz pianist”. The conflict can be explained in the fact that born and brought up in the Soviet Union, and working in Moscow under the Soviets’ strict musical ethos which frowned on the “western decadence” of jazz, Kapustin had a vested interest in distancing himself from the genre (especially after, as the booklet notes suggest, he lost the protection and support of Gennady Rozhdestvensky), while it appears that his definition of a jazz pianist was very much narrower than ours. The fact remains, however, that the world of jazz is very much to the fore in the Cello Concerto, composed in 1997, and in much of the orchestral writing of the first movement, echoes of the Big Band are very prominent. As with the piano works, the Concerto is exuberant, seething with activity – even the central bluesy movement has rather more activity bustling along under the surface than the “Largo con moto” marking might suggest – and shot through with the kind of jazzy rhythms and harmonies which simply make you want to get up and dance along. This is a hugely enjoyable concerto, and one which should find its way very rapidly into the standard concerto repertory, now that it is, at last, out in the open.
Stylistically and musically a world away, the Schnittke Concerto shows a very different side to the cello, emphasising its dramatic, passionate and, occasionally, doleful persona yet, as with all Schnittke, full of little surprises and touches of acerbic wit. He wrote it while recovering from a stroke and recalls how he was “offered a view of the hereafter three times”. Reflective in places, passionate in others and often moving off into the ecstatic, it is a work packed full of musical intensity and wonderfully inventive orchestral timbres all held together by the dominant narrative of the cello line.
Eckart Runge was cellist with the Artemis Quartet, but has a style of playing which travels way beyond the intimacy of a chamber ensemble, and he is not afraid to indulge in the big gesture or dramatic flourish. His virtuosity is brilliantly displayed in the Kapustin and his vivacity and stamina are put very much to the test (and certainly not found wanting) in the Schnittke. Both are breath-taking performances generously supported by the Berlin Radio Symphony on fine form under Frank Strobel,
Marc Rochester
